Welcome to NSFW Sunday!
Feature image via herdykedaddygirlfriend.
+ Joumana Haddad, publisher of the only erotica magazine in Arabic, spoke with Bitch about erotica, atheism and feminism in the Middle East, language and more:
“DANNA LORCH: Contemporary Arabic uses metaphors for the body and sexuality rather than describing physical acts openly. Has that always been the case?
JOUMANA HADDAD: The words for talking candidly about the body do exist, but the Arabic language has been violated by taboos, fears and prohibitions that have deprived it of part of its inherent erotic potential. If you go back to early literature like The Perfumed Garden or even the uncensored version of One Thousand and One Nights, you’ll find erotica. One reason I wanted to publish Jasad in Arabic rather than French or English was because Arabic is quite capable of conveying all those words, scenes, and ideas in a very beautiful and direct way with no need for metaphors.”
+ At the Hairpin, Lindsay King-Miller answered questions about being the straight girl in a group of queer friends and not actually being sure you’re straight, when your sexual activities and identity don’t match up and anal sex:
“Start slow: Again, this tip is more about penetration than oral-anal sex. If you just want to rim, go for it. But if you’re planning on using fingers, toys, or a penis (let’s not forget that some queer chicks have those), be aware that the receptive partner may need some time to work up to penetration, since anal sex can feel super intense. Start with just a finger or a finger-sized toy, and again, use plenty of lube. If that feels comfortable and enjoyable, gradually work up to more fingers, bigger toys, etc. But if it’s a no-go, don’t push it! People who are turned on by the idea of anal sex but don’t actually enjoy the penetration part can still have an awesome time stimulating the outside of the butt with fingers, tongue, vibrators, or whatever else you can come up with. There are a ton of options, so if at first you don’t succeed, grab some more lube and try again.”
+ Crash Pad creator Shine Louise Houston is trying to produce SNAPSHOT, an adult suspense thriller featuring queer women of color, independently via an indiegogo campaign. In the description, Houston writes:
“Coming out stories are huge in queer communities, and they play an important role in making sense of what we’ve been through and in helping pave the way for others. Growing up queer, I was always frustrated with the coming out stories I was hearing and seeing: there were so few queers of color, the representations’ idea of ‘sexy’ wasn’t mine, narratives were formulaic and stereotypical, and the production quality left a lot to be desired. SNAPSHOT is an attempt to provide a different coming out narrative in a tone that reflects some of my most profound filmic influences. It involves two women of color as its main characters. The character whose ‘coming out’ is in focus is in her late 30s — and her coming out has to do more with the intricacies of new desires than with gender.”
+ You do you.
+ Hey Epiphora’s take down of BlissMe Vibrators is absolutely beautiful.
+ America is weird about sex.
+ Be careful about having sex in a running car.
+ You can dress like Taylor Swift in Bad Blood and support a small business at the same time.
+ Deborah Sundahl, a sex educator specializing in female ejaculation and the g-spot, spoke to Alternet about squirting as a sexual reaction that everyone is theoretically capable of:
“I ask women in my lecture to raise their hands—and I’ve done this for years so I have big anecdotal evidence—how many women stop in the middle of making love to go to the bathroom. And 30% will raise their hand. And then I ask how many of you wait until you’re done making love, meaning, they have to pee during lovemaking, and they have to wait to go, and another 30% raise their hands. That’s 60% of women holding back their ejaculate not knowing it’s ejaculate, thinking it’s pee…They hold back, clench their pelvic floor muscles. Some women don’t even want to have sex because it feels funny… they think something is wrong with them when they have sex. This is a big, big, big problem, this is a big issue, and the correct information must get out there.”
+ The sex toy industry is getting more social- and eco-aware:
“At the core of production is demand. And while Queen and others in the know don’t believe that the majority of their customers are expressly seeking cruelty-free or eco-friendly products, it can be selling point once they’re in the door.
‘Larger companies that are still making toxic toys aren’t only making toxic toys, they’re making body-safe toys and advertising them as body-safe toys because that’s where a lot of the demand is,’ says Sarah Mueller, a sex educator at Smitten Kitten.”
+ It doesn’t matter how many people you have slept with because the number alone doesn’t really mean anything:
“[A] number is nothing without a nuanced conversation about who you once were, are now, might always be, was that one time. Sexuality is a fluid (sorry), changing thing. Your behavior sexually as a single person in your twenties may look nothing like your behavior sexually in your thirties, or forties. One guy in Bernstein’s story says he tells women he slept with about two women a year because saying he fucked 70 people sounds shitty.
It shouldn’t, though. It should sound like a number that someone who feels they can trust you could explain, without having to feel like they owed you an explanation because of misleading and erroneous cultural perceptions. The problem is, I doubt seriously that most people have the kind of insight into their own behavior to explain their number anyway. There are so many circumstances and attitudes that would explain your sexual history, so many asterisks that, without clarification, muddy your ability to get some kind of crystal ball insight into a person on a number alone.”
Relevant Autostraddle articles you may have missed this week:
- Check Out These Rad Sexy Video Games, by Morgan McCormick
- B is Hilarious: What She’s Doing When She’s Not Texting You Back, by Brittani Nichols
- SEX SURVEY POST! When Did You Do It For The First Time and How Many People Have You Done It With, Huh?, by Riese
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